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the 'Her Dress Hangs Here': De-frocking Kahlo Cult

ORIANA BADDELEY

in a The 1990shavewitnessed shift theartestablishart towards producedoutsideofits ment'sattitudes traditionalparameters.The work of previously artistshas become an area of rich marginalised speculationamong art dealers priced out of the 'modern masters'market.Almosteveryyear has terrain of witnessedthe discovery new artistic art, art, graffiti Sovietart,Australian theartofLatin America.The major auction houses have moved withthe timesand have foundnew waysofselling would have and content whichin bothform works a provedan unstableinvestment decade ago. The statusof the workof the Mexican painter current Frida Kahlo is a dramaticexampleof thischange. as Once knownprimarily thewifeofDiego Rivera, supercedes outsideofMexiconowfar herreputation have of his:since1979,sale roomestimates herwork and in 1990a $40,000to over$1 million, risenfrom New at workby Kahlo brokeall records Sotheby's artist. a Yorkfor LatinAmerican

The enormousrisein the economicvalue ofher workhas developedin tandemwiththe increased blend to and critical popularresponse herparticular content. While the first of naive styleand incisive wave of popular interestarose with the 1982 by instigated Laura Mulvey exhibition Whitechapel of and PeterWollen,'itwas thepublication Hayden whichhas led of Herrera's biography Kahlo in 19832 cult status.Since thatdate she has to her current film a of beenthesubject TV documentaries,feature ('Frida' by Paul Leduc), a stage play, numerous for clothand the inspiration designer publications ing. In May 1989 Ell magazine ran a 16 page on feature Frida Kahlo as the 'spiritof Mexico' (Feb. 1990) therewas a 10 (Fig. 1), while in Vogue of of page interpretation'theromance FridaKahlo's as Mexico' (Fig. 2). Almost a logicaloutcomeofthis of in media blitz,it emerged the summer 1990that Madonna, alreadya devoteeof Kahlo's work,was based on Kahlo's life. a commissioning screenplay

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Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon, known as Frida Kahlo, was born July 6, 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico City, Mexico. She died July 13, 1954 in the same place that she was born. She suffered poliomyelitis at the age of six, and at age eighteen, she was a victim of a tragic bus accident which resulted in30 surgeries that left her with constant pain and infertility. However, her strength made her replace her agony with art. While she was in bed for recovery, her mom gave her a mirror to see herself. Therefore, through her paintings, we can feel her pain and sensibility. For instance, in one self-portrait “The Broken Columns” dressed in a metal corset, she painted in a surrealistic...

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Vocabulary in context (p.8)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
b c a b c d d a c a
Vocabulary Building & in New Context (P.9)
1 2 3 4 5 6
Building e, look, movement, ideas d, group, reputation, criminal a, accident, injury, wound b, artist, musician, painting f, turbulence, life, pain c, decoration, design, painting
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Main Ideas 1 The main idea of paragraph 3 is how Frida Kahlo's life was influenced by her having polio at the age of six.
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3 Line 60, or the first sentence, states the main idea of paragraph 11.
4 The first two sentences of paragraph 12 contain the main idea.
Details 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
d b a c c b b a d d
Inferences The Statements that can be inferred are 2, 3, 6, 7, 9.
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...Born July 6, 1907 in Coyocoán, Mexico City, Mexico Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón began life with great struggle. Kahlo’s mother, too ill to care for or feed her newborn, hired an Indian wet-nurse to breastfeed and care for the newborn. Kahlo was raised in the family’s home where she was born, later named La Casa Azul (The Blue House). Polio caused Kahlo to lose a great deal of control over her right leg and foot, but did not slow the adventurous child. During her youth Kahlo studied photography in her father’s studio, learning to use the camera, develop, retouch and color photographs and later studied commercial printmaking as a paid apprentice to her father’s close friend, Fernando Fernandez. However, it was while enrolled at The National Preparatory School, to pursue medical studies, that Kahlo met famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. During her youth Kahlo was severely injured when the bus she and a follow political activist and love interest, Alejandro Gómez Arias, collided with a streetcar. In the collision, Kahlo’s spine and pelvis were fractured when she was impaled by a steel handrail. It was upon her returned home from the Red Cross Hospital in Mexico City, that Kahlo began painting using a specially designed easel that could be positioned above her bed to allow her to paint without lifting her back. (biography)
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Kahlo suffered lifelong health problems, many of which stemmed from a traffic accident in her teenage years. These issues are reflected in her works, more than half of which are self-portraits of one sort or another. Kahlo suggested, "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best." She also stated, "I was born a bitch. I was born a painter
Frida was one of four daughters born to a Hungarian-Jewish father and a mother of Spanish and Mexican Indian descent. She did not originally plan to become an artist. A survivor of polio, she entered a pre-med program in Mexico City. At the age of 18, she was seriously injured in a bus accident. She spent over a...

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development. Furthermore, she was involved in a bus accident later in her life,
which damaged her spine and was extremely traumatic in her mental
processes. Because of this, she had ongoing surgery throughout her life, and,
was in constant pain. However, after this accident, she began painting to
express herself. As a result of her accident, she suffered numerous
miscarriages and was unable to have children – an issue she explores in her
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cultural background and mythology, and Mexican traditions through her dress,
layout, and symbolism. Particularly evident in ―Las Dos Fridas‖, history and
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